Come On & Squeeze The Juice From My Neckbones

Hi boys & girls,

I hope this post finds all of you doing well. It's good to see this board alive & well. It's been a while since I've seen some of you (& you know who you are) and that must be remedied with some future lunch or movie dates. In the meantime, I've got my first show coming up at the Rye Bar on Friday May 2nd. I'm playing records all night long. I'll be playing lots of rare soul & a little rock n roll from the 60s & 70s for 4 straight hours. Lots of killer b-sides, album tracks, & forgotten hits and it's all stuff you can dance to. So no Michael Jackson's Thriller, nothing from Prince's Purple Rain, nor no Madonna just straight up old school soul & delicious funk. Can you all dig it? If you haven't been to the Rye Bar yet it's awesome. There's no cover so I hope to see you all there. who knows, maybe it might turn out like this...

...and we can see the Sauce in a leather vest and assless chaps. I can only hope...

religion going left?

this recent study indicates that there could be a major shift in the politics of the religious, particularly the young. the study found that "40 percent of likely born-again voters planned to vote Democratic this year, compared with 29 percent who planned to vote Republican." of course who knows about the polling methodology, etc. but to me, coming from the bible belt and hyper-conservative cobb county, that is a staggering stat. if those numbers are even somewhat accurate, it would represent a sea change in the political landscape.

fence post:

this is an ER pick taken of a guy that was driving his boat at 75 MPH down a narrow waterway, struck the shore, was thrown from the boat, and landed on a fence post. click the picture for a closer view. the good news is that despite a shattered hip, broken leg, several broken ribs, internal injuries and soft tissue damage, he made a full recover in 6 months.

the next time you think life has dealt you a rough hand, just be glad you aren't this dude.

if you like shitty movies, don't miss "my blueberry nights"

One of the worst movies I've seen in a while. Not a single line of convincing dialogue in the whole thing. Starring Norah Jones (a blank slate), Jude Law (doing his overcaffeinated fop thing), Rachel Weiz (good), David Straitharn (very good), and Natalie Portman (nails-on-chalkboard bad as a sassy, hardscrabble gambling addict).

I've only seen 2046 so I'm no authority on Wong Kar-Wai. As I understand it, his appeal is largely based in his use of a vivid color palette to create a sort of noirish alternate universe for his wounded romantics. I can dig that. But, although there are some beautiful shots, I couldn't have cared less about the characters in my blueberry nights. The whole thing is completely airless, like an actor's workshop or something. Like Rachel Weiz flew in for the day and was told, "now, you've just learned your husband killed himself, you've wanted to be free of him for so long, but now you realize what you had...go!" And she had one of the better performances. Natalie Portman said some stuff that had me looking at my shoes embarrassed. In a darkened theater! When asked by Norah Jones' waitress how she wants her eggs, she says with down-but-not-out, seen-it-all twang, "I don't know darlin', how bout tied up and nailed to the floor?" What in the world does that mean?

btw, fans of the wire should check out "lush life," by richard price, an occasional writer for the dearly departed: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/books/review/Kirn-t.html?_r=2&ref=books&oref=slogin&oref=slogin. A real page-turning crime novel with some of the best dialogue I've ever read.

pacino

If you like vicious movie reviews, check out the critical reception to the new Al Pacino vehicle: http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/88minutes. What a disaster! Most every critic comments on how terrible Pacino looks (e.g., "a suburnt corpse").

Why does Al Pacino look so ridiculous? I've mentioned this a few times to various folks on this list, but if you look back at some of his work in the 70s (Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico), you're not inclined to say "oh, look at how young Al Pacino looks," but, "wow, who's that good-looking, young Italian fella doing a slow-burn? did he die in a plane crash before i was born or something?"

Not to mention his well-documented change from an understated actor who emoted when the character called for it to a tic-affected screamer. As much as Godfathers I and II have been coopted into pop culture as "the ultimate guys' movie," I still think Al Pacino's performance is mesmerizing. When he's on screen, he's never doing anything more than dragging on cigarrette or sipping tonic water. And you can't take your eyes off of him.

Now go watch Heat, specifically that scene where he starts screaming at Hank Azaria completely out of the blue in a police interrogation room. Screaming about how nice it'd be to crawl up a woman's ass or something. It's incoherent, and, unfortunately, emblematic of the gum-popping, wild-eyed "Al Pacino" character that's been around since the early 90s.

...only in America...

So i watched the debate yesterday and i couldn't believe that more than the first 45 minutes were wasted with non-real-issue questions. While I expected questions about Obama's „bitter“ comments I thought both the Wright- and the Bosnia-issue would be dead by now. The worst question of the night, however, was the one about the flag lapel pin. Give me a break! Maybe I really don't get it, but last time I checked the U.S. had quite bigger problems.

Some of the real issues have been talked to death. However, ABC could have asked so many interesting questions that have not been addressed properly, yet. Everyone is talking about Iraq. What about Afganistan - how long does the U.S. intend to stay there? ABC gave the candidates 1 minute to address the growing gas prices, another important issue. How would they address the growing food prices? How do the candidates intend to get rid of the huge deficit that Bush is responsible for? What is the candidates stance on Bush's disastrous speech about stopping the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, which pretty much contradicts the policy of nearly everyone else in the world.

What we saw yesterday was an example of bad media performance while a lot is at stake. I tried to imagine a non-issue-45-minute debate in the German media during our elections and came to the conclusion that it just wouldn't happen. I know I'll sound like an "elitist" and snobby European but let me just say it with the words of Huevos: Only in America...

I'm interested in the opinion of the 4KS-community about the debate...

the boss speaks.

the news on the presidential race is coming fast, and is so readily available that it's sort of pointless to comment on. probably any "story" i point out, most of our loyal readership will be well aware of. but i thought this article makes an interested argument, the conspiracy theory that clinton is only trying to weaken obama now so that he'll lose to mccain and she can run against mccain in 2012. not sure if i totally by that (i just think she's smug, delusional, and crazed in her pursuit of power), but i like the theory.

a couple of you have heard my theory about guiliani, namely that he's making so much fucking money as a public speaker that he didn't really want to be president. thus he didn't even campaign in iowa or new hampshire, and when he lost in florida he withdrew in like 3 seconds.

this "bitter" controversy is so lame. luckily it doesn't seem to be resonating with voters. probably because what he said is basically 100% true, and even moderately religious "middle america" types know it. zealots and hard-core gun rights assholes are going to vote for mccain anyway.

anyway, what prompted this post was this story. not that it's really going to make a difference to many people beyond PC, but i'm still glad to be standing with the boss.

btw, has anybody seen or heard from the sauce? he's like a ghost. also his blog just crossed the 1 year mark with no posts.

DJ Mahogany's Anything Goes Birthday Bash

Well...

My birthday is coming up next week, but I'm celebrating a few days early by throwing a birthday bash dance party @ Little King Saturday night. It's gonna be a sexy anything goes good time. There will be free birthday cake, cd mixes, and the sauce hopefully singing happy birthday to me Marilyn Monroe style. If he does that I'll go white face & be JFK. I'm going to be playing all of my favorite songs all night long so I won't adhere to my usual basket of soul goodies. Look out out for some classic rock, yacht rock, country, blues, jazz, and some rare soul goodies. I hope you can all stop by and say hello.

Who knows....maybe my party will turn out like this...


Hope to see you all there...